I'm a lover of quotes. I usually look them up about every other day, for whatever is going on in my life. Right now, I think my life is like everyone's, I'm worried about the world around me, and the chaos that seems to be everywhere. So I just looked up chaos and this one by Gore Vidal seems to sum it all up perfectly.
At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation and prejudice....Gore Vidal
I've been working on a fun project I intend to start after the end of this year. I found a new craft, well, new to me, a few months ago, and part of it is creating YouTube video tutorials. I've been an artist my entire life, and taught college level art for years. Although I had done a few collage or mixed media pieces, I did oil and acrylic painting, mostly landscapes, but some folk art. Recently I ran across a video about junk journals and making the ephemera that goes into them, and I was hooked. So I started gluing and cutting and creating and having a blast. Then in mid-July of 2023, I had a bout of pancreatitis and sepsis that knocked me on my butt. It actually almost killed me. I ended up in the emergency room, then quickly in surgery, and then in a hospital bed where I couldn't talk, or eat, or basically do anything for a long, long while. I had two weeks of kidney dialysis and started to feel a little better, but recovery is still going on and I've been told it will take a long time. But guess what? I had found the perfect thing to keep my mind busy, something that wasn't too physically taxing. Junk Journals! Now how hard is cutting and inking and gluing? Not hard at all. I'm knee deep in beautiful ephemera pieces that I will fill my first journal with, but I made so much, I'm going to sell it here in my shop. Just watch for it.
Here's my long and windy story about how I got started in the collecting and antique business to begin with...It all really started when I was 8 years old and my grandma gave me $5 to go to the neighbor's garage sale. That was a lot of money back then, but I think Grandma was simply trying to help the neighbors. They'd lost their house and were selling everything to move into a small apartment across town.
Grandma's eyes lit up when I pulled a big red wagon up to the front porch with two huge boxes in it. "Did you buy a wagon?" she said with a smile on her face. That smile soon left and she looked totally puzzled when she saw that both boxes were full of picture frames. "We don't have enough pictures to put in all these," she said. "Is this all they had left?" I explained that someday I was going to be a great photographer and I'd need all these frames. That was also the beginning of a lifetime of story telling. But that Christmas Santa brought me a new camera and five rolls of film. I took pictures of everything: our mule, our chickens, our hound dogs, my rabbit, my toes, my fingers, my face in the mirror, and best of all, Grandma and Grandpa. Soon our house was filled with frames on every flat surface. Grandpa even put a shelf that ran around three walls in my bedroom to hold frames. A great photographer I never became, but those frames started a lifetime of loving all things old.
We had a famous artist in our town, Lester Chase. Grandma used to walk with him to the Piggly Wiggly and one day she came home and said that she'd traded two chickens for ten painting classes for me. Six chickens later I found out I was pretty good and started selling art work at festivals when I was 17 and still in high school, and after studying art in college I sold in galleries and shops. It wasn't long before I opened my own shop and then a tea room, always doing festivals and street fairs in between.
I retired with my husband in 2008 and we began to travel. Hotels weren't our thing because we had two dogs, so we bought a truck and a small camper, then a bigger truck and a bigger camper and we took off on weekends and summers. We loved it so much we planned to put our house on the market and go full time. But what to do with that lifetime of collecting? On April 8th, 2018, I opened my first Etsy shop to remedy that problem. But when Covid hit, we couldn't get out as much, so our plans of doing the RVing full time ended for the time being. We did sell our house though, to our sons for a whipping $1. We plan to use it as home base when we finally get back on the road.
HeroesandRecords and CastawayCottageFinds
We're also on eBay and Pinterest and Twitter and will soon open our first FacebookMarketplace shop. Why, you wonder, at my age am I doing more instead of less...it's because I honestly believe staying busy helps you live longer, and one of my sons is helping me and will carry on when I no longer can. He loves old things just as much as I do...especially his dear old mum.
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Vintage and antique items are always unique and the buyer is responsible for reviewing the pictures provided and reading the details of each item before purchasing. Please remember that vintage is far from new, and there are times when wear is visible. We will always list any major wear or age, or chips and scratches in their listing so please read carefully. Finding a problem on a vintage item that has been pointed out in a listing is not an acceptable reason for a return. Questions are always welcome and more pictures will be provided if requested.
At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation and prejudice....Gore Vidal
I've been working on a fun project I intend to start after the end of this year. I found a new craft, well, new to me, a few months ago, and part of it is creating YouTube video tutorials. I've been an artist my entire life, and taught college level art for years. Although I had done a few collage or mixed media pieces, I did oil and acrylic painting, mostly landscapes, but some folk art. Recently I ran across a video about junk journals and making the ephemera that goes into them, and I was hooked. So I started gluing and cutting and creating and having a blast. Then in mid-July of 2023, I had a bout of pancreatitis and sepsis that knocked me on my butt. It actually almost killed me. I ended up in the emergency room, then quickly in surgery, and then in a hospital bed where I couldn't talk, or eat, or basically do anything for a long, long while. I had two weeks of kidney dialysis and started to feel a little better, but recovery is still going on and I've been told it will take a long time. But guess what? I had found the perfect thing to keep my mind busy, something that wasn't too physically taxing. Junk Journals! Now how hard is cutting and inking and gluing? Not hard at all. I'm knee deep in beautiful ephemera pieces that I will fill my first journal with, but I made so much, I'm going to sell it here in my shop. Just watch for it.
Here's my long and windy story about how I got started in the collecting and antique business to begin with...It all really started when I was 8 years old and my grandma gave me $5 to go to the neighbor's garage sale. That was a lot of money back then, but I think Grandma was simply trying to help the neighbors. They'd lost their house and were selling everything to move into a small apartment across town.
Grandma's eyes lit up when I pulled a big red wagon up to the front porch with two huge boxes in it. "Did you buy a wagon?" she said with a smile on her face. That smile soon left and she looked totally puzzled when she saw that both boxes were full of picture frames. "We don't have enough pictures to put in all these," she said. "Is this all they had left?" I explained that someday I was going to be a great photographer and I'd need all these frames. That was also the beginning of a lifetime of story telling. But that Christmas Santa brought me a new camera and five rolls of film. I took pictures of everything: our mule, our chickens, our hound dogs, my rabbit, my toes, my fingers, my face in the mirror, and best of all, Grandma and Grandpa. Soon our house was filled with frames on every flat surface. Grandpa even put a shelf that ran around three walls in my bedroom to hold frames. A great photographer I never became, but those frames started a lifetime of loving all things old.
We had a famous artist in our town, Lester Chase. Grandma used to walk with him to the Piggly Wiggly and one day she came home and said that she'd traded two chickens for ten painting classes for me. Six chickens later I found out I was pretty good and started selling art work at festivals when I was 17 and still in high school, and after studying art in college I sold in galleries and shops. It wasn't long before I opened my own shop and then a tea room, always doing festivals and street fairs in between.
I retired with my husband in 2008 and we began to travel. Hotels weren't our thing because we had two dogs, so we bought a truck and a small camper, then a bigger truck and a bigger camper and we took off on weekends and summers. We loved it so much we planned to put our house on the market and go full time. But what to do with that lifetime of collecting? On April 8th, 2018, I opened my first Etsy shop to remedy that problem. But when Covid hit, we couldn't get out as much, so our plans of doing the RVing full time ended for the time being. We did sell our house though, to our sons for a whipping $1. We plan to use it as home base when we finally get back on the road.
HeroesandRecords and CastawayCottageFinds
We're also on eBay and Pinterest and Twitter and will soon open our first FacebookMarketplace shop. Why, you wonder, at my age am I doing more instead of less...it's because I honestly believe staying busy helps you live longer, and one of my sons is helping me and will carry on when I no longer can. He loves old things just as much as I do...especially his dear old mum.
***************************
Vintage and antique items are always unique and the buyer is responsible for reviewing the pictures provided and reading the details of each item before purchasing. Please remember that vintage is far from new, and there are times when wear is visible. We will always list any major wear or age, or chips and scratches in their listing so please read carefully. Finding a problem on a vintage item that has been pointed out in a listing is not an acceptable reason for a return. Questions are always welcome and more pictures will be provided if requested.